"I Ain't Real Smart"

[Kerry Stratton]

In the last few statemnets of the article ladyfisher writes that commercial fishing and poor management are the causes for the decline of salmon in the Pacific Northwest. I have no argument that these are probably a couple of the larger contributors to the slamon's decline but I would say habitat destruction is the biggest culprit. Development, logging, farming and dams have done more damage by means of habitat destruction to the Pacific salmon then any other thing.

[This message has been edited by Kerry Stratton (edited 03 April 2006).]

[fishy guts]

i agree with you, if the salmon dont have the right spawning grounds because of farming logging, etc. then they wont lay their eggs. plus with the dams, half the time they cant make it to the spawning grounds, and if the do, the fry dont make it back to the ocean.

[Kerry Stratton]

Jim,

I am sure the lady meant that. I like to make a distinction because many that are involved with fish management such as the WDFW have little or no say in habitat use.

Most dams are regulated and licensed by the feds. Logging depending on whose land it is done on has many agencies involved. None of which have complete authority over it. Development is usually controlled by local government or not controlled which really seems the case. Farming is just now coming under scrutiny. Probably because the dams and logging have new signed agreements and the farmers don't.

I look at my home river, the Skagit, and see a bleak future. We have regulated the fishing seasons for both commercial and sport fishing to the point of stopping the fishing but the salmon populations continue to drop. I watch as more and more businesses, homes, apartments, streets and roads are built along the banks of the river in what appears to be uncontrolled building frenzy. More and more of the river is channelized by diking taking away estuaries, sloughs, side channels; anyplace a fish might find refuge. The rivers banks stripped of all trees. Farmers plowing fields to the river's edge, using pesticides, herbicides and fertilizers which run directly into the river. Clear cut logging that allows silt from run off to clog the spawning grounds and hastens snow melt resulting in something like flash flooding. Dams that just plain block the river from passage and prevent the natural flows of the river needed for spawning fish and their young.

All of this and more mostly out of the control of fish managers and yet we look at them and wonder why they can't do a better job.

[LadyFisher]

Kerry I have written extensively about the fact the local people should have been challenging who is running for the offices at the community (county) levels, as well as state levels. Everyone is to blame - and I mean everyone.

When we moved to WA, this was the "Salmon Capitol" of the world. Looking at it from a sports fishing level, British Columbia did a study, (which I also wrote about here) on the dollars spent compared to commerical fisheries. The money lost to the Pacific Northwest states from lost sports fishing is in the BILLIONS.

On top of that the taxpayers pay for the salmon hatchery system which directly supports the commercial fishery. Since the mandate of our state's Fish and Game is to first take care of the commercial fishery, there will not be a significant change until someone changes that.

There is also an attitude problem at the State level. A couple of years ago I had a long conversation about the status of our salmon with a very high official in the Fish and Game who said, "I hope they all go extinct, so we can start over and do it right."

The banning of inshore nettting has been tried as a proposition at elections and has failed 3 times. Lots of lies and money defeated it.

Everyone just sits back and does nothing.
That may be the saddest of all.

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LadyFisher, Publisher of
FAOL

[Kerry Stratton]

If I could move this thread I would.

I don't know how I messed up the title. Getting old I guess.

Yeah, there is plenty of blame to go around. I have never talked to many in the upper management of WDFW but I have had the pleasure to speak with many of the bios and field people that work for WDFW. All were very professional, most were fishermen/women (and most that fished did so with a fly rod), and all seemed to put the fish first. When I think of the managers of our fisheries these are the folks I think of. It is a thankless job from all directions. We as fishermen blame them for no fish, politicians and upper management block thier attempts to do what needs to be done.

Perhaps I shoud have been clearer if who I see as the management.

[LadyFisher]

Kerry, so you know, the state fisheries department has ALWAYS had the power to ban the inshore netting. This information came to me from Peter Van Gytenbeek. That they haven't speaks for itself, don't you think?

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LadyFisher, Publisher of
FAOL

[ELKHUNTER]

Another problem I see is with the seals and sea lions. Just look how they are killing damn near ever fish that gets into the locks on the Columbia river. A local slough here at home gets a run of fall fish and the number of seals is growing every year that chase them clear up into the fresh water. When the tide goes out the fish head for the deeper holes and the seals have a feast. I have seen these seals wait around till someone hooks a fish then they come and take it off the line. The last three years the number of fish and fishermen has dropped due to the ongoing fight with the seals.

You can't keep blaming the logging and the farmers. The logging industry has regulations they have to follow such as leaving a buffer zone of trees along the streams and the farmers have had to stop using a lot of the pesticide they use to use. In the past I do believe the logging industry had a lot to do with it with all the splash dams that scoured the stream beds clean of spawning gravel. The loggers in this part of the country are now helping the fish out by putting logs in the rivers and streams in critical places to create holding water and to hold stream gravel back from getting washed out of the stream. And it is working. Some of the streams they worked on around here in the last few years have had a steady increase in the number of fish you see spawning in the winter.

I think the blame can be spread around to a whole lot of things not just a few.

Rocky

[old geezer]

Great follow up, its a shame the sparks I feel here can't be transferred to the right powers to be in Fish and Game as well as the Politicians.

Philip

Since most of the Salmon swim a circular route around the Pacific Rim, in their seaward journey, does it not take lot of thinking to think, they may be harvested at other locations on the salmons journey?

Any commercial fisherman with a calendar, can figure out, when the salmon should be passing near their area.

Anything outside the borders of the USA, is open seas, and not regulated by any nation.

~Parnelli

[ELKHUNTER]

I was sitting here tonight at work thinking about this and another thing that hurts the salmon and steelhead here are the trout fishermen who toss lures. And some that throw flies. The trout streams around here do not require barbless hooks. When the trout season opens the end of May these smolts are anywhere from 4 to six inches long and they readily grab spinners. And when you are fishing with barbed hooks and try and release a smolt they pretty much always go belly up from their insides getting ripped out by someone wanting to get their spinner out. It is not quite so bad with the barbed flies but I have seen them taken roughly out of fish with the same results. You get a few hundred people fishing a stream every weekend and that is a lot of dying salmon and steelhead. I would like to see barbless hooks on all streams and no triple hooks on lures during the trout season. I have voiced my opinion on this at local Fish and Wildlife meetings all to no avail.

Rocky